Josh-da-man

The recent passing of Tommy Ramone spurred a discussion with one of my friends to day. With Tommy gone, all four original members of the Ramones are now dead.

My friend and I tried to think of any other prominent bands whose founding/original members are deceased and were unable to think of any.

The Who, The Beatles (not counting Stuart Sutcliffe or the conspiracy theories about Paul McCartney), and The Doors are both down to two surviving members. Zeppelin still has Page, Plant, JPJ still alive and kicking, and the Rolling Stones have only lost Brian Jones. All four original members of Black Sabbath are still around.

The only one I can come up with is the Jimi Hendrix Experience, with all three original members, Hendrix, Redding, and Mitchell, being dead, though to me, Jimi Hendrix always felt more like a solo artist than a member of a band called The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Hazel Motes

The Flying Burrito Brothers have 1 of 4 original members
The Stooges have 1 of 4 original members
The Temptations have 1 of 5 original members
The New York Dolls have 2 of 5 original members.
The Band has 2 of 5 original members.
Lynyrd Skynyrd has 2 of 6 original members.
The Bee Gees have 1 of 3 original members.

I can't think of a band thats members are all dead. Unless you count The Carter Family as a band.

Ash Ketchum

The original members of the Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Paul Whiteman and Fletcher Henderson jazz bands are all dead.

spsimmons

Sad thing is, that within the next couple years this list is going to grow by leaps and bounds. Depressing to think of. I'm a huge Stones fan, but I know the time is coming. Probably not too far off.

manicsounds

Here's a bigger question: A band whose original members are all dead, but subsequent members are still continuing the band. (No, factory-made revolving door boy bands don't count)

Josh-da-man

Lynyrd Skynyrd, eventually.

It's rather rare for bands to go on without any founding members, whether they're all dead or not. There was an English pop group that eventually lost all of its original members, and the original line-up reformed under a different name.

And Quiet Riot, for a while, was recording and touring without any of the founding members. Actually, they did this twice. In the late 80s, they fired vocalist Kevin DuBrow before recording their fifth album. DuBrow was, by that time, the only band member who was in the original line up. He rejoined the band several years later until his death a few years ago. The band has since reformed with no original members; Frankie Banali, the drummer, is the closest thing to an original member. He joined the band with their fourth album.

hdnmickey

But even this hasn't happened often... yet. Plenty of bands touring in name only, but the founding members aren't dead. Just not interested in being in a band anymore.

Good one. But wasn't Banali on Metal Health, their third album?
That point also brings up the point of when a band is fist considered the band in discussions like these? Those first two QR albums weren't even originally released in the US.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, Banali was on Metal Health. Just a typo, between all of the albums and line-ups I lost count. I would consider QR I and QR II to be the first two albums since they were publicly released on major labels, whereas something like the early Pantera albums weren't.

Generally, I'd say that the 'original line- up' and 'founding members' would be the line-up on a group's first album. Which would exclude guys like Neil Peart of Rush and Dave Grohl of Nirvana, but it seems like the best yard stick available.

rw2516

Some months ago a friend and I were trying to think of long running bands that never deviated from the original lineup. The exact same guys on every single recording. Thought of starting a thread but decided too narrow for the thread to go anywhere. Came up with ZZ Top and U2.

Hazel Motes

Led Zeppelin
Creedence Clearwater Revival.
The Bee Gees
ABBA
The Highwaymen
The Travelling Wilburys
The White Stripes

Gdrlv

Phish. It's not technically the original lineup since Page McConnell wasn't technically an original member, and they had a second guitarist for a few years. But every commercial release, from 1988 until 2014, is the same 4 guys.

Adam Tyner

Weird Al has had the same band for more than 30 years, although he did add a keyboardist along the way.

Sloan has had the same lineup for more than 20 years (with a touring keyboardist caveat).

Drexl

The Wilburys? Roy Orbison died before the 2nd album was made.

Michael Corvin

Yeah, and CCR lost a Fogerty or two along the way and spawned lawsuits and fun stuff like that because of it.

How about the Eagles? Did they ever have fill ins during the "we hate each other" years or did they make a clean break and reunite years later?

Hazel Motes

well, technically the Wilburys only ever had original members record, it just happened that Roy Orbison died. But a founding member was never replaced.

And Creedence Clearwater Revival was only ever John Fogerty, Tom Fogerty, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford. Stu Cook and Doug Clifford later started what basically amounts to a tribute band under the name "Creedence Clearwater Revisited". So technically it was never Creedence Clearwater Revival. And besides, I'm pretty sure everyone knows that CCR was 100% John Fogerty anyhow.

benedict

As of February, Bill Haley & The Comets have all ceased to be.

Michelle Phillips has made it to 70 years of age and is the last remaining of the Mamas & the Papas.

rbrown498

The original lineup of Frey, Henley, Leadon, and Meisner appeared on the first four albums; Don Felder joined the band on their third album (and was eventually fired in 2001), Leadon quit before the band started work on Hotel California and was replaced by Joe Walsh, and Meisner quit after the Hotel California tour and was replaced by Tim Schmit.

After they reformed in 1994, I gave up even pretending to care.

cdollaz

One of these is not like the others.

Toddarino

The last Creedence Clearwater Revival did not have Tom Fogerty. He quit prior to that album.

Guru Askew

Big Star only has 1 surviving member of the original 4.

van der graaf

Maroon 5. This is the "bands whose founding members should all be dead," right?

Ash Ketchum

What's the official definition of a band? Aren't two or more members required to play musical instruments for it to be a band, as opposed to a singing group?

cdollaz

The difference is that The White Stripes only recorded for a relatively short period of time, so it isn't really worth noting that they maintained the same lineup over that period of time. That is like saying Muse, The Black Keys, and shit like that maintained their lineups over time. We could name a ton of those.

Now that I look at that post more closely the poster mentioned those as "long-running bands" and most of them wouldn't really be defined as "long-running".

rw2516

I mean long running bands, 20 years+. A lot of bands have lastest that long or longer but with replacements. What about Bon Jovi? They're all the original guys? Petty has done outside stuff, but are The Heartbreakers the exact same guys from day one? What about Crazy Horse? It's on and off, but when Neil Young gets together with Crazy Horse, exact same guys for 40+ years?

Rockmjd23

Bon Jovi - nope, they fired the bassist in the 90s
Heartbreakers - one of them died
Crazy Horse - not even close, multiple deaths and revolving door members.